Alison Pepper, SVP, 4A’s Government Relations, delivered a statement at the California Attorney General’s hearing in Fresno, regarding member agencies’ concerns about the California Consumer Privacy Act. Issues include consent, the use of publicly available data, and the conflation of pseudonymized data and personal information.

Read the two sets of comments the 4A’s submitted in response to the request for public comments on “Developing the Administration’s Approach to Consumer Privacy,” a September 26 notice by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Learn what the advertising and marketing community can expect to see from our newest Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the topic of commercial speech. While his record of opinions is not extensive enough to draw a clear conclusion, it does suggest that Justice Kavanaugh will be inclined to side with the government, but not to extremes.

The FTC announced plans to hold a series of hearings examining competition and consumer protection in the 21st Century. The Commission has indicated that the hearings will seek to discover “whether broad-based changes in the economy, evolving business practices, new technologies, or international developments might require adjustments to competition and consumer protection, enforcement law, enforcement priorities and policy.”

Apple recently announced a new set of changes to the default settings for its Safari browser that will further damage the consumer experience online and undercut the economic model that provides popular ad-supported content and services to millions of Americans. Here’s an open letter from 4A’s, AAF, ANA, IAB and NAI.

Following in the wake of the recent GDPR compliance deadline, California has now passed the nation’s strictest privacy law. On June 28th the California Legislature passed AB 375, or the “California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018.” Our 4A’s Washington, D.C. office has been working closely with our partners and allies to determine next steps.

Please join Dick O’Brien, Executive Vice President, Director of Government Relations, at a 4A’s Town Hall from 12-12:45PM EST on Thursday, February 1st. Learn how the government had a major impact last year on such agency fundamentals as the cost of advertising, the accessibility of data for media targeting, the required level of overtime pay for employees, and the cost of employee health insurance.

At the start of 2017, the new administration and Congress set tax reform as one of their highest priorities. As work on that began in earnest, it became clear that the reduction in the full deductibility of advertising was once again in play. The 4A’s, in concert with other advertising groups, launched a massive effort of congressional contact, both in Washington and at the grassroots level across states and congressional districts, to blunt this attempt to limit full deductibility.